What is Your Favorite Thanksgiving Food Memory?

I always remember my father during the Thanksgiving holiday which was his favorite holiday. I think it was because there was football all day, plenty of very good food and lots of relatives coming to visit. During this time, he insisted we always have tangerines and pomegranites and grapes in the house which has been one of my favorite memories of him.

We are Italian, so our Thanksgiving feast literally lasted for hours. I remember my mother getting up so early to start the turkey on Thursday morning. Lots of the other food was prepped the day or night before. But Thanksgiving dinner always started around noon with antipasto salad, then a traditional wedding soup (chicken based with escarole, tiny meatballs, orzo pasta, carrots with a scrambled egg dropped in at the end), lasagna and meatballs and other meats cooked into the sauce so that it melted in your mouth. Mmmm . . . the heavenly smells in our kitchen and the tastes were delightful. I can remember it all . . . We would take a short break and clear away the dirty dishes and set out new plates for what came next: the traditional turkey dinner with mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and string beans and carrots and stuffing and of course the infamous turkey. By the end of the meal you were so stuffed you couldn't move, but still wanted to eat more because it tasted sooooo good!! I'm sure everyone has very similar memories no matter what your nationality.

Then came clearing away and cleaning up the dirty dishes only to set out the desserts and a second wave of relatives who had basically the same dinner elsewhere, and were making the rounds for dessert at our house. Everyone always brought something too. There were plenty of jelly donuts and pumpkin pie, apple pie, pumpkin breads and banana breads and cream pies and cannolis and wandas and cornets and chocolate eclairs and of course, my father's favorites fruits. The tangerines, the pomegranites and the grapes. All had with tons of coffee and milk or espresso and annisette (a licorice cordial) and gallons of soda pop. I remember my father having one slice of the pumpkin pie, one slice of apple and then the fruits, which he said you could eat till your heart's content.

Looking back, I am surprised we all lived as long as we have! I don't eat that way anymore and I don't cook that way at all, although I do miss the traditions that I grew up with. My children have grown up with me as a vegetarian and slowly working my way into a raw vegan. I find myself making several different meals every day to satisfy everyone's particular appetite, which might sound like a lot of work, and sometimes it is, but not everyone is a vegetarian or a raw vegan, and you can't force the issue. However, what I can do is make a special dish for each of us for the Thanksgiving dinner that we would thoroughly enjoy, and make it as healthy as possible and then set out our tangerines, pomepgranites and grapes for dessert with a raw pumpkin pie and a raw apple crisp which we can all enjoy to our heart's content! That is one tradition that I am proud to carry on in my father's memory with the hope that my children will look back fondly one day as I have, and carry on that same tradition.

Happy Healthy Thanksgiving to all!!